'It seems a great waste of films,' said I.

The young man lifted his cap; I continued my way among the rocks
eastward; he went steadily in the opposite direction; round the other
side of the hill we met again.

'Oh,' I cried, genuinely disturbed, 'have I spoilt another?'

The young man smiled--certainly a very personable young man--and
explained that the light was no longer strong enough to do any more.
Again in this explanation did he call me gnaediges Fraeulein, and again
was I touched by so much innocence. And his German, too, was touching;
it was so conscientiously grammatical, so laboriously put together, so
like pieces of Goethe learned by heart.

By this time the sun hung low over the houses of Putbus, and the strip
of sand with its coarse grass and weatherbeaten trees was turned by the
golden flush into a fairy bridge, spanning a mystic sea, joining two
wonderful, shining islands. We walked along with all the radiance in our
faces. It is, as I have observed, impossible to get away from any one on
an island that is small enough. We were both going back to the inn, and
the strip of land is narrow. Therefore we went together, and what that
young man talked about the whole way in the most ponderous German was
the Absolute.

I can't think what I have done that I should be talked to for twenty
minutes by a nice young man who mistook me for a Fraeulein about the
Absolute. He evidently thought--the innocence of him!--that being German
I must, whatever my sex and the shape of my head, be interested. I don't
know how it began. It was certainly not my fault, for till that day I
had had no definite attitude in regard to it. Of course I did not tell
him that. Age has at least made me artful. A real Fraeulein would have
looked as vacant as she felt, and have said, 'What is the Absolute?'
Being a matron and artful, I simply looked thoughtful--quite an easy
thing to do--and said, 'How do you define it?'

He said he defined it as a negation of the conceivable. Continuing in my
artfulness I said that there was much to be said for that view of it,
and asked how he had reached his conclusions. He explained elaborately.
Clearly he took me to be an intelligent Fraeulein, and indeed I gave
myself great pains to look like one.

It appeared that he had a vast admiration for everything German, and
especially for German erudition. Well, we are very erudite in places.
Unfortunately no erudition comes up my way.

My acquaintances